You see an island. An island small enough that only three palm trees fit on it. The sand is pretty, the trees are nicely greened, and the water that surrounds it is so shallow that the water looks bright blue with the sun shining perfectly on it. Is this your paradise?
Imagine a woman with a wet bikini on who wants you very badly.
Or a muscular dude with a flat stomach.
Is this your paradise?
I'm writing my first entry while at my office sitting at my desk with my feet propped up and occasionally I pick up my phone saying "Jack, line 2, Jack line 2."
Just for the fun of having a desk job.
~~
On Tuesday of this week I took home some footage we shot for our Williamston Weekly, which will be going on the air tomorrow. When I say on the air, I mean only into the lungs of the students in each classroom. But some don't breath, they catch up on sleep.
It started out as an idea from Kim. If I had known that this is who the idea spawned from, I would have had zero confidence in anything that would have come out of it. In fact, I still really didn't like the idea.
I believe "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton" was another source of the beginnings of this project. It was Kim's idea to feature Chelsey as a girl who would be competed for...to win a date.
It turned into a game show rather than having anything to do with the plot of "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton." I've never seen that movie, anyways. Topher Grace is in it. That, there, is what would sell this movie. Topher Grace.
I was asked to film, and I didn't see why not, and even if I had seen the why-not, I would not have paid any attention to it. I was doing this for Chelsey.
But still, a game show?
They had ideas for contestants. Robert is damn nice enough to do these kinds of things. I award him the nicest guy award for never finishing last. Jimmy is a friend of Chelsey's [and mine, I wouldn't doubt], and he is also damn nice enough to do this. Alec was also nice enough to do this, bringing enough to do a show.
First we filmed Robert answering questions. Then we filmed Alec answering questions while Jimmy waited to be asked. After Jimmy's replies, we filmed Chelsey's questions. She basically stared at Kim (off camera) and asked the three "contestants" each question. This is how you film a game show- or anything- in the world of Williamston Weekly.
Then I would take home the footage and record it into my computer...along with my footage shot of Justin and Doug during the winter throwing snow balls at each other, my silly fake-movie titles, and my random footage of me doing nothing which was edited poorly a long while ago.
Very quickly, the editing process of rearranging the scenes to make it look like Chelsey was asking each contestant each question instead of her asking each question to an off-camera spot again and again. Then I would cut down the beginning of each clip where I would say "go," as opposed to "action." And I would cut out the end of each clip where Kim would start cracking up for absolutely no reason (sometimes), and that, in effect, would crack up Chelsey.
After everything was in order, I watched it, cutting out some nonsense every character, Jimmy, Alec, and Robert, would say. They didn't say a whole lot of nonsense, but there was some. Then I would arrange random footage of Kim and Chelsey, and more importantly Chelsey, to show as an intro. I timed and added "What a Girl Wants" as an intro with the titles into the beginning (which was later changed by Chelsey to "Boom Boom Boom Boom," and surprisingly worked anyways).
When I was done with editing enough to give any audience a pretty good idea, and had chopped and cut certain responses to sound funnier, at least to me, then I showed Diana what I had done.
She noticed a lot of mistakes. I had to rearrange the contestants into a certain order that they actually created themselves. Thank you, Diana. And after seeing Chelsey ask "Do you believe in magic?" I put the song "Do You Believe in Magic" in as an outro, and it worked really well. Diana said "I was just thinking you should put that song in."
So I'll give her the credit.
Diana was laughing at a lot of the things Jimmy was saying and doing, and the other guys would make her smile at least. Well done, contestants.
The next day, Chelsey came over after school and we had to cut down a lot of the skit...which ended up being just over six minutes. It started out as 15 minutes of footage, and I had it cut down to over 10 minutes. Chels cut it down to just over 6 minutes. That's fricken great, except for the fact that we had to cut a couple of questions out.
Some of the questions making it into the final cut being:
Have you ever been arrested?
If I were to slip and fall, what would you do?
Do you believe in magic? where Jimmy broke out into song.
If you were a jungle animal, what would you be?
Do you know the muffin man?
and
Why would you be the perfect prom date? and on this question, I would slowly zoom in on each contestant thinking it would create a dramatic effect.
This was my paradise.
I had a lot of fun editing, and I think, with the combination of Chelsey and I, took a lame Kim idea, and turned it into something fun...at least I'm laughing.
We'll see how the skit turns out tomorrow when I ask my lunch table to critique what they saw during second hour. We'll see. If the skit turns out lame...they'll have Tony acting as the president during the end of the world and giving out government secrets. I think that is hilarious.
It wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald who killed Kennedy. A predator (which I'm sure you know from the Swarzenegger film, "Predator") came from the future and assassinated him.
~~
After school today, I went back into my Windows Movie Maker, a very simple program that allows me to do whatever I want with any footage I can get on my camera. With that, I found my winter footage of Doug and Justin throwing snow balls at each other. I switched some scenes around, added an intro with some of the footage used in the little movie by just copying and pasting into the beginning...and putting some slow-mo action for your entertainment. And finally put a song on the whole thing.
Then, of course, I had to edit some of it all over again to fit with the song.
It's turned into a music video, actually...almost.
Now, as my reader, and not my viewer, I can only wish to be able to show you these two things I have recently edited on my computer. Alas, I cannot, and I can't even assure you that any of it is really that good.
But I am having a fun time editing. And I am giving a lot of thought to a movie Byrdman wants to make in the summer. I wrote a silly little plot to it...and set it in the Community Center.
The basement of the Community Center is one of the scariest places in the world. Awesome movie setting, right there.
And here I am, sitting in this office, propping my feet up on the desk, picking up the phone every so often saying "Walter, your wife's on the phone asking about your , and I quote, �scandalous secretary.�"
Perfect setting for a movie.
And on my desktop background upon this computer, I see an island. And island only big enough to fit three palm trees. I am there with my scandalous beauty, and she doesn't have her bikini on anymore.
I'm in my paradise.
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